Quaestiones de quolibet in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia (Editio Leonina) ed. by Rene Antoine Gauthier, others

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS 319 dimension of faith. But Jenkins himself is unable to provide a comprehensive theological account of faith in the broader context of Aquinas's doctrine of grace. There is ultimately something ironic about the failure of the theological side of Jenkins's project because it results from his failure to adhere to his own account of the need for intellectual apprenticeship within a tradition: you cannot acquire scientia about sacra doctrina without a long period of apprenticeship within a Thomistic theological tradition. Jenkins could learn a lot about sacra doctrina, grace, faith, and the structure of the Summa from the Dominican tradition that he wants to correct about scientia. The Catholic University ofAmerica Washington, D.C. BRIANJ. SHANLEY, 0.P. Quaestiones de quolibet in Sancti Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia (Editio Leonina). Edited by RENE ANTOINE GAlITHIER and others. Tomus 25/l and 25/2. Rome: Ad Sanctae Sabinae, 1996. Pp. 160* + 174; xxi + 502. Although the literary genre of the quodlibetal question is well known to students of medieval philosophy, theology, and canon law, it appears to be among the least-consulted portions of St. Thomas's literary legacy, as scholars prefer consulting his more thorough and magisterial texts, such as the Summa Theologiae and Summa contra Gentiles, or the various sets of disputed questions on narrowly-defined topics (e.g., De anima, De malo, etc.). And perhaps this should not be a surprise, given the nature of the quodlibetal question, and the collections comprised of such questions. Like its sibling the disputed question, the quodlibet was a public event, attended by interested parties, in which a master would offer his answers to questions presented for discussion. Those gathered would raise single doubts or concerns about the question at hand, and the master would see to it that his answer laid the groundwork for answering those doubts in their turn. What characterized the disputed question was that it was the master himself who set the topics for consideration. The topics might be ones he specialized in, or ones he was considering at the moment for some other purpose; perhaps he was working on a summa in which that topic figured prominently. The quodlibetal question differed from the standard disputed question in a few ways, as we know from the work of Palemon Glorieux (La litterature quodlibetique de 1260 a1320 (Vol. 1 [Paris: Le Saulchoir, 1925]; Vol. 2 [Paris: J. Vrin, 1935]) and John Wippel ("Quodlibetal Questions Chiefly in Theology 320 BOOK REVIEWS Faculties," in B. Bazan, et al., Les questions disputees et Jes questions quodlibetiquesdans Jes facuJtes de theologie de droit et de medecine [Turnhout: Brepols, 1985], 155-222). The chief difference in the quodlibetal question was that the subject to be considered by the master was decided upon by those in attendance, and it could be literally "anything you like," or, as the Master General of the Dominican Order, Humbert of Romans, described it, it was "about anything, at anyone's pleasure" (de quoJibet, ad voJuntatem cuiuslibet) -though he was speaking more narrowly about the tasks of the Master of Students in Dominican houses of study ("De officio magistri studentium," in Humbert of Romans, Opera de vita reguJari, ed. J. J. Berthier [Turin: Marietti, 1956], 2:260). Other differences doubtless existed, but we should in honesty admit to less certainty about their origin or actual practice, at least as regards how quodlibetal questions would have functioned at the University of Paris during Thomas's two regencies there (1256-59; 1268-72); the university statutes that survive date from the fourteenth century, and it is all too easy to fall into ante hoc sicut hoc historical reasoning. Generally, though, it is thought that a quodlibet at a university was a two-day affair, in which the master and his bachelor would function as something of a team. At the first meeting, the disputatio, the topics to be discussed would be set, and various arguments pro and con would be given, with the bachelor, not the master, fielding these objections (obiecta); it seems that a goal for the quodlibet was a kind of on-the-job training for the bachelor. The master might jump in, but only regarding...